


Now, I've Found A Real Love

by lookingfortherainbow



Series: Advent Calendar Fics of 2020 [8]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 16-Year-Old Harry Styles, 18-Year-Old Louis Tomlinson, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Harry is getting over his ex Nick, Holidays, Jealous Louis Tomlinson, M/M, Pining Louis Tomlinson, Post-Break Up, Showing Off, Sledding, Snow, The Tomlinson Twins, Winter, its not that big a deal in the story dont worry, yes theyre british btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingfortherainbow/pseuds/lookingfortherainbow
Summary: Harry and the girls’ protests followed Louis all the way to the top of a heavily wooded trail that stood farther away from the open area of the park’s hill they’d just sledded down. Maybe this was less about saving Harry’s bruised ego, and more about showing off to his best mate, whom he’d fancied since primary school. But it would be entertaining either way, and that was all that mattered..Or, Louis cheers a recently broken-up with Harry by taking him sledding. Romance and talk of nautical tattoos ensues.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: Advent Calendar Fics of 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037256
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Now, I've Found A Real Love

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this at 3:25 am, I don't know how my brain still works. This brings me so much joy doing this, though. I can't stop. Enjoy fetus larry confessing their feelings. <33
> 
> Title's from Last Christmas by Wham!, because it totally fits this story.

In theory, having your best friend home from boarding school would be the ultimate treat. That is, if your best mate hadn’t just gotten dumped right before the holidays. 

Under no circumstances did Louis find Harry crying and miserable bearable or something he could take lightly. But it was the fifth day since he’d been home, his boarding school letting the kids go home a week before Christmas day, and Louis was tired of watching Harry agonize over the loss of his doorknob of a boyfriend. 

“Harry, literally _anything_ would be better than you moping around.”

“Like what?” 

_“Like,”_ Louis dragged out the word, thinking. “Like, we could go to Tesco and put the discount stickers on some of the bakery items and buy a shit load. I know how much you like those colorful sugar biscuits.”

Even though Louis worked at Tesco, now full time since graduating college in the spring, and he technically had an employee discount, it was still fun to do something they used to when they were younger. For the thrill of it. 

Harry groaned into Louis’ pillow that he’d been sniffling into. 

“I don’t speak whale, Harry,” Louis grumbled, pinching his mate’s bum. 

Maybe he was being a bit harsh about all of it. But he couldn’t help the relief that had flooded his body when Harry had returned to their hometown with the news that his dreadful, pompous boyfriend, Nick, had broken up with him. He didn't belong with that dickhead, and everyone knew it. Except for Harry, it seemed. 

He pulled his face out of where it had dug a hole in Louis’ pillow. “I’m not hungry for biscuits.”

Louis rolled his eyes at him. Scooching further up the bed, he pulled Harry’s head gently onto his lap, his knees folded underneath him. With great care, he tugged the hairs that’d stuck to the corners of Harry’s eyes away, his dried tears acting as glue.

“Darling, you can’t let that bastard ruin your holidays for you.”

Eyeing him from the awkward angle his neck was bent at, Harry furrowed his brows at him. “Can’t help it, Lou.”

“Sure you can! Here, how’s this? How does sledding sound to you? Hm? We’ve got all the gear here, we can take the twins with us,” Louis suggested, smiling at Harry as the boy’s face lit up at the mention of his little sisters, “and we can compete with them in sledding races.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry sighed. “Guess the fresh air would do me good.”

“You bet it will, mate!” Louis reassured him, before leaping off the bed to set their plans into action. 

*

Turns out that the less weight there was on a sled, the faster it went. Which is why both Louis and Harry ended up losing against Phoebe and Daisy each and every trip down the park’s hill. Well, on the runs they didn’t cheat on. Harry had begun a growth spurt since he’d left for the fall semester, which made for long enough legs that he could reach out and bump the girls’ sled with. 

Every time he did that, the twins would complain with overdramatized indignance they’d learned from Louis, scolding Harry and throwing snow at him. It ended in dog-piling on top of him when Harry inevitably fell into the snow. 

“Girls, go easy on him. Poor lad’s just had his heart broken,” Louis laughed, snorting at Harry’s red nose and cheeks and the mess of snow being shoved into his curls like he was being shampooed. 

Harry’s giggling and shrieks died down as the girls stepped away, still laughing despite Harry’s now subdued behavior. 

“Sorry, H,” Louis bit his lip. 

Harry got up from the ground, wiping snow off his snowsuit, shaking his head free of the cold, white powder. “S’okay, Lou. I dunno why you hated him so much, ‘cause he really was very cool, way cooler than me, anyway.”

“Hey, now, don’t go saying that load of bullshit,” Louis reprimanded. “He’s the idiot that broke up with you. You’re the one that tried so hard to keep things together between you two, instead of being a cold-hearted bitch like him.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Sometimes, you have to settle. . .for a cold-hearted bitch.”

Louis really didn’t understand that look Harry was giving him, green eyes peeking through the curtain of delicate lashes and damp curls. He felt like he’d missed something when Harry sighed deeply, looking down and kicking at snow. “Anyway, I wouldn’t hang out with me either if I was a badass heartbreaker.”

Louis scoffed so hard it hurt his throat. “I can’t believe this. Harry Styles thinks he’s not cool whilst hanging out with the coolest person in town.”

That managed to get a smile back on his best mate’s face. 

“Girls, am I cool? Actually, scratch that, don’t answer that. Are _we_ cool?”

The girls who’d previously looked at Louis with scrunched, critical faces, cheered their agreement, their confirmation. 

“Right, so Harry, I’m going to go sled down that tricky trail just to proved to you how cool I am. How cool _you_ are, how _badass_ we are _together_.”

Harry and the girls’ protests followed Louis all the way to the top of a heavily wooded trail that stood farther away from the open area of the park’s hill they’d just sledded down. Maybe this was less about saving Harry’s bruised ego, and more about showing off to his best mate, whom he’d fancied since primary school. But it would be entertaining either way, and that was all that mattered. 

When he settled his bum on the sled, Harry thumped to the ground, kneeling next to him and clutching his leg. “This isn’t safe, Louis.”

“I laugh in the face of danger!” Louis shouted. He tried to ignore the way the heat from Harry’s hand on his thigh was bleeding through all his layers. 

“You’ll poke your eye out,” Harry worried, looking at all the low hanging branches on the trail. 

“Psh, then I can wear an eye patch, and we can get nautical tattoos to complete the look.”

“We can get nautical tattoos without you losing your eye,” Harry reassured him, and Louis’ heart ached as he looked at Harry’s concerned expression. 

“You’d get tattoos with me? Like, like. . .complementary ones?”

“Of course,” Harry said in a whoosh of breath, suddenly staring a little to hard at Louis. “Any kind you’d want.”

“Lou, we’re getting hungry and cold. Go already,” Phoebe whined, dancing around in the snow, flinging her limbs to create heat in her small body. 

Pulled from the reverie he’d been caught in, Louis reassured his sisters they’d leave soon and gave Harry a cheeky grin. “If I survive this, then it’s you, me, and a tattoo parlor.”

Shoving off before Harry could let out the words he saw were forming, Louis was suddenly on a snowy trail of death. The sights before him were indistinguishable as the cold air hit his eyes, his vision blurring with tears from the sensitivity. At every branch that appeared seconds before they’d hit his face, Louis ducked. One wrong shift of his weight halfway down the hill caused his sled to veer to the right, hitting a tree trunk and flinging Louis into the sticky roots and bare branches of the woods. 

“Louis!” three voices shouted. 

Cold, shaking hands caressed his face, warm, hot breath fanning over his lips in panting breaths. 

“Lou?” A small voice asked, and Louis felt the breath of it. 

He cracked his eyes open, face still stinging from the slap of the branches on them moments before. All the pain left when he took in the green eyes, shining with concern and affection, studying his face. 

“Jesus, Harry. Nick’s the biggest, proudest loser if he’s willing to let you go,” Louis murmured, lifting a hand to press against the side of Harry’s rosy cheek, thumb caressing under his eye. 

“Lou?” Harry asked again, this one a question of permission, a request. 

Louis didn’t need to reply with words, only needed to tug slightly on Harry’s neck. And then he was going easy with the pressure, bending down, leaning on his elbows over Louis to let their lips meet finally. 

It was more than Louis could’ve hoped for, and he wondered how he’d starved this long for a taste of this without simply dying. Harry’s lips were a perfect, plump pout on top of his. The soft press of them was so gentle, Louis felt like he was pressing his lips to feathers. He pulled Harry further into him, angling his head to the side, opening his own mouth just that little bit. It was enough to get the heft of Harry’s bottom lip in between his, enough to make his palm smooth up into his hair from where it’d been resting on his cheek. 

“Louis, Harry, we’re cold. Wanna go home.”

Harry startled from the kiss, pulling back abruptly, their lips separating with a soft sound. Before Harry could flee, Louis gripped his arm, holding him in place with the intensity of his gaze. 

“Hey. I went on the trail. Y’know what that means. Complementary tattoos.”

“‘M not old enough, though, Lou,” Harry whined a bit, like this fact was making his insides shrivel.

Louis couldn’t take his eyes off that pout, couldn’t believe it’d been pressed to his lips moments before. 

“We’ll start with stick ‘n’ pokes, silly,’ Louis grinned, winking. 

Harry nodded, smile starting small and then growing and growing. “Always wanted to do those with you.”

“Really?” Louis asked, surprised. 

“Yeah. Wanted to put a little heart on you. Or, like, maybe my initial, or. . .summat,” Harry confessed, his voice gone breathy. 

Louis realized there was much more to that look, that wide-eyed, I’ll-follow-you-into-the-dark gaze that Harry had met him with for years now. He’d been blind to it until, now. 

“So. . .it’s a date?”

Harry bit his lip so hard his flesh was turning white, nodding furiously. “‘S a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to reblog the little fic post I made for this series, [click here](https://andtheywerebandmates.tumblr.com/post/636606796721717248/its-december-and-i-wanted-to-do-something)
> 
> Thank you to all who've read, commented, and left kudos! <333


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